Business Intelligence Breakdown

By: Meghashree JM, ennVee

The Importance of Business Intelligence

Business operations are becoming more complex with the passage of time which affords little time for research and innovation. Larger enterprises are rushing towards outperforming the competition which will ultimately require a significant amount of meaningful insights. In addition, consumer behavior is continuously shifting, and understanding that behavior is imperative to decision making. Although there will always be a certain amount of risk when it comes to making business decisions, that risk doesn’t have to be so perilous. However, with the increasing extent of untidy data it becomes difficult to analyze in real-time. Firms desperately need technologies with which they can analyze and predict market trends with a simple click and business intelligence serves this purpose. By adopting a reliable business intelligence solution, organizations can enjoy the confidence to move forward in an increasingly data-driven world.

85% of IT leaders believe big data will dramatically change the way business is done (Forbes), meaning the implementation and analysis of BI will have a huge impact. This is evident by the fact that companies with analytics are 5x more likely to make quicker decisions. Clearly, Business Intelligence (BI) is one of the hottest innovations in the market across the world, which is paving the way for the most cutting-edge technologies that can revolutionize the future. For businesses looking to utilize BI tools, the software can be overwhelming by knowing the wants and needs of professionals in the field and industry standards. With all of the current trends on analytics, we can enable our teams the ability to simplify complex data and better optimize and strategize for business success.

Examining at the Road Ahead

There’s little doubt that the future of business belongs to big data. Consider this: by the year 2020, 1.7 megabytes of new information will be created each second for every human being on the planet, and our annual digital universe will have grown to 44 zettabytes—approximately 10 times its current size. Therefore, it is imperative that businesses implement tools that will help them in any way possible shift through the mounds of data coming their way.

Data never sleeps & Data never sleeps

This recent business intelligence infographic (below) represents the amount of data created on the web every single minute through a range of sources including emails, YouTube videos, Facebook, Twitter, website pages, and search engine queries. Now, if we revisit this a few years later to see how much has changed, it explores more recent sources of web data such as WhatsApp, Pinterest, and Tinder, and illustrates the substantial changes in volume of data.

It is already interesting to note that using analytics does give us an advantage if the competition is not. If everyone is doing it, you don’t have an advantage. Conversely, if everyone is doing analytics and you are not, then you are at a distinct disadvantage. With BI Tools, we are creating an interactive experience for end users. The final result delivered is an interactive application that allows users to explore the data rather than just viewing it. So, to create an efficient dashboard, we need to stop thinking as if we were developing a static report. To quote the late Steve Jobs, “Most people make the mistake of thinking design is what it looks like … That’s not what we think design is. It’s not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.”

Vast future scope

The world has realized the power of BI and now it is used in almost all industries like software, healthcare, retail, government projects, etc., and this scope will only continue to expand in the not so distant future. Entering this domain will be a solid step towards your success. When I planned to launch my career as a BI professional, this was definitely the best decision that I made, as BI is trending like anything making it a holy grail for various aspirants.